A Fear of Ostracism
A Fear of Ostracism In contrast to the informational value of conformity, normative influence leads people to conform because they fear the consequence of rejection that follows deviance. It’s easy to see why. Early on, research showed that individuals who stray from a group’s norm tend to be disliked, rejected, ridiculed, and outright dismissed. Today, research shows that deviance breeds exactly the same negative reactions. Although some people are more resilient than others, these forms of interpersonal rejection are hard to take. Particularly in highly public social media sites, like Twitter, making a controversial remark can unleash an outpouring of online shaming, or “viral outrage.” This negative feedback can prove so punishing that even those delivering that feedback get criticized.
Why does being ostracized hurt so much? Why, for example, have some teen- age victims of cyberbullying reacted with such devastation that they committed suicide? Increasingly, social psychologists are coming to appreciate the extent to which human beings, over the course of evolution, have needed each other in order to survive and to flourish. According to Geoff MacDonald and Mark Leary, our need to belong is so primitive that rejection can inflict a social pain that feels just like physical pain. You can sense the connection in the way people describe their emotional reactions to social loss using such words as hurt, broken- hearted, and crushed.
